Cincinnatus Lodge, A. F. & A. M. The History
of Our LodgeWalter Dean of New
Marlborough on December 8, 1795 presented a twenty-one signature
petition to the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts requesting a charter
for a new lodge. Grand Master Paul Revere signed the
charter for Cincinnatus Lodge, Berkshire County's fourth lodge
after Franklin, Evening Star, and Berkshire.

Brother Dean was a
veteran of the Revolutionary War, and so were many of his fellow
petitioners.

The lodge held its
first meeting at Brother Joel Brigham's home on January 1, 1796,
with an installation of officers and a procession to the village
church. The following week the first meeting for work was
held, and two candidates were proposed, accepted and initiated.

Friday night, on
or before the full moon, became the regular meeting night.

In 1797 meeting
were held half the year in Great Barrington, half in New
Marlborough. Three years later the lodge moved permanently
to the larger town.

Cincinnatus Lodge
had a number of meeting places in Great Barrington: Captain
Pynchon's, a brick building on Stockbridge Road; and David
Leavenworth's commercial building among them. The lodge met
for four years in Sheffield, after the lodge there ceased, then
took quarters in an upper floor of the Miller House, later known
as the Barrington House. It moved to the Whiting Block in
1864, remaining there until 1896 when it shifted to the Berkshire
Block.

Freemasons came
from as far away as Adams and Copake, N. Y., to attend the
Cincinnatus Festival of St. John the Baptist on June 24,
1858. A line was formed, headed by the band, and some 125
visitors were escorted to the Housatonic Agricultural Society
fairgrounds by members where exercises were held - Brother
Increase Sumner delivered the oration - then counter marched to
the Berkshire House for an outdoor banquest.

Cincinnatus Lodge,
which had a membership of 150, marked its centennial on June 24,
1896 with a grand celebration. "All the business
blocks and private residences were elaborately decorated, and
flags and banners were hung across the business streets at
regular intervals," described R. W. Orlando Bedwell.
"In the center of the balcony of Town Hall a large oil
painting of the Goddess of Liberty was the central figure; on the
Berkshire block a life size portrait of George Washington in his
Masonic regalia; underneath that, in a frame of red, white and
blue, the principal insignia of Masonry, the Square, and Compass
on the open Bible."

Membership rose to
300 in 1920, but in recent years has held stable at about half
that number.

Several lodge
members have served higher position. James F. Watson, to
mention one, in 1945 was elected Junior Grand Warden and became
the only permanent member of Grand Lodge that Cincinnatus Lodge
ever had.

Cincinnatus Lodge
in 1949 acquired the Walker Hall property on Main Street, near
the Post Office, and after a successful fundraising effort,
dedicated its present building on May 24, 1958. The
mortgage was burned in 1970.